It is often desirable to compress electronic data such as digital data. For example, compression of electronic data may be used to minimize storage capacity requirements for storing the data. As another example, compression of electronic data may be used to minimize bandwidth requirements for transmitting the electronic data over a communication link. As just one particular example, intrusion detection systems may be used by an enterprise to detect and identify unauthorized or unwanted use (commonly called an attack) of the enterprise's computer network, which normally comprises a large number of nodes and network operations centers. Intrusion detection systems often receive voluminous amounts of incoming electronic data. Consequently, it may be desirable to compress intrusion detection data, to minimize bandwidth and storage requirements for example.